


The Dawn Machine

by Aphidity



Series: Eldritch Horrorformers [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, Comfort, Eldritch Horror Rodimus, Friendship, Gen, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-03-26 11:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13856466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aphidity/pseuds/Aphidity
Summary: Something sharp and bright and hungry has decided to follow Drift home.At least he's got a friend now.





	1. Amalgamy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SirenSong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirenSong/gifts).



> AU where Rodimus is an actual eldritch abomination, but is still the same in all other aspects. Inspired by [this post](http://alyonian.tumblr.com/post/171344173829/alyonian-alyonian-since-jen-actually-has).

It’s when Drift notices the flash of gold at the corner of his optics that he knows something is wrong.

Gold isn’t really an expected colour with him head-deep in a dumpster, after all. He rears back in surprise, only to bash his helm on the dumpster’s raised cover.

He spares a moment to bark curses and rub the newly-sore dent on his helm, all while stumbling away from the dumpster and back into the dilapidated alleyway. Three cycles ago, he might have continued digging on the off chance that golden shine came from something valuable in the trash. Now, he knows better.

Dead End is exactly what it sounds like. A cesspit of crime, rust and despair. Drift’s entire existence online has been in the vicious alleys of Dead End, and he is intimately familiar with the deprivation of this Primus-forsaken rustpit. Buildings are crumbling and never free from rust, or worse, slime parasites. The better ones have a mostly intact roof to hold off the acid rain. The best hidey-hole he’s ever been in had a glitchmouse infestation. He hadn’t needed to worry about fuel for a decacycle then.

His current den isn’t too bad, even if the roof has completely caved in. Dead End is buried at the lowest level while the glittering spires of the city rise above. Dead End is the rotting base where undesirables are relegated to be forgotten, far from respectable society, far from the sun’s light.

All-in-all, not much in Dead End isn’t rust-coloured, or buried under the weight of the city above. The flashes he sees isn’t some stray metal scrap, and definitely not the sun either.

There’s no way those glimpses of gold can be some other mech instead. No bot in Dead End can possibly afford a paintjob in that hue or fuel to sustain their nanites to such vibrancy. Starvation has eaten patches of rust at his transformation seams, where the protective wax has worn thin. Not that he has the credits for more wax and paint. All Drift can do is ignore the persistent itch gnawing away his plating, same as everybody else. In the end, it’s just another misery on top of so many more.

The flashes are new, though, and _supremely_ irritating. They first started three cycles back, when he’d been moseying around the abandoned tyre factory six blocks down, looking for some scrap to trade for fuel. That rundown husk smelt like the rest of Dead End, of burnt polymers and curdled oil and the tang of rust.

Then came a jet of hot air tickling down his spinal plating. That had been surprising. He didn’t think that there would be a functional heating vent left in the gutted interior. Maybe it could even be a new place to curl up in when living got too exhausting. It didn’t even smell too bad in there. Odd though. Smelt like sun-warmed metal backed by an acrid char, and something thin and old that he could not name.

Then the flashes started.

Drift changed his mind right there and then. His chemosensors didn’t detect anything, but maybe that warm draught carried some poisonous chemical fumes or something. Maybe those fumes were interfering with his vision. Or worse, his processor. Either way, he got out of there as fast as he could.

Some risks weren’t worth taking, in Dead End.

Worryingly, the flashes persisted. Drift shrugged it off as a glitch at first. Maybe it was a manufacturing defect, or from processor damage, or from energon deprivation. He wasn’t too bothered, not with so many glitch-ridden mechs walking around in Dead End for the previous three reasons. As long as he can look out for himself, it’s no big deal.

Except now, he’s seeing red and gold at every turn. Colours that he never ever sees in Dead End! It could just be faulty optics, but even his processor is getting scrambled. His thoughts are hardly his own nowadays. It’s like an intrusive tendril snaking and insinuating in his subroutines. A virus, maybe?

Drift has to stifle a groan at this point. He can’t afford to get a systems virus! He’s worked and scrabbled and fought so hard just to keep afloat and stay online! At least there’s a possible escape route – that gruff medic’s free clinic, maybe he can do something for this glitch or vir-

Singing.

He hears singing.

There are no words, at least not any that he can recognise. But that thin stream of sound at the back of his processor, rising and rolling musically to an unknown meter – that is definitely a voice of some sort. (How does he know this?) Some _thing_ is singing to itself and it’s in his processor and please Adaptus is he going insane?

Primus have mercy, the flashes are back.

The world is out of focus no matter how many times he recalibrates his optics. Outlines dance hazily in air that shimmers as if heated by a bonfire. Heat licks at his plating.

The singing swells triumphantly and echoes in Drift’s audials. It’s the most beautiful and awful thing he has ever heard. It’s the crackle of flames and the screaming of thousands and the blaze of spilt energon, he’s scared, he’s _terrified_ , he just wants it to stop, please-

a shrieking crescendo-

His plating _burns_ , and his world goes up in flames-

and for that moment-

Everything is gold and red and marvellous.

 


	2. Scorched by the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has been very unwise.

He is still burning.

Sparks hiss and fizzle in his audials. Bubbles of static grow and pop. Slowly, at first, then faster, more frequently, until they merge into a stream of white noise.

Its intensity waxes and wanes, like tuning in to an unknown radio frequency. He can only wince as the harsh sounds trill and grate through his consciousness. At times, it sharpens into almost-words, but his processor shrinks away from interpretation.

The pressure behind his optics build and build. Something wet might be spilling out of them. He does not know.

The haze and burning subside momentarily, and something gathers itself together into a ball of bright energy-

-and explodes in a blast that sears and bleeds-

He does not know.

* * *

 

He would startle at seeing a face so close to his own if he could move. Panic surges up his fuel pump to the back of his mouth and blinds his processor. It just doesn’t seem to reach his limbs.

His battered gyroscopes lurch wildly as they feed data to his processor in a too-fast stream. His processor screams to get up and run from this vulnerable position, but his frame is sluggish and leaden. He feels like purging.

“-alm down, calm down! Drift! Calm down, I’m here.” The voice comes from faraway, but relocates to somewhere to his left as his audials reboot. It does not seem to come from the face in front of him.

His scrambled circuits take an embarrassingly long time to reconcile this discrepancy by noticing that there are in fact _two_ mechs with him. Another nanoklik passes before he realises that the voice and face mean no harm.

Panic bleeds out, leaving empty exhaustion. His frame feels ready to collapse in on itself. “Gasket?” Lifting his helm crimps painfully on tender wires.

“Don’t _move_ , Primus be damned!” His slowly rebooting processor identify the other mech as that grumpy medic. The one running the free clinic. Ratchet. Is he in the clinic? Does it mean he's been badly hurt? What is Gasket doing here as well?

A red chevron pops back into Drift’s line of sight. “So. Tell me how you got yourself in this scrap-sorry state.”

All Drift can wring out through his voxcoder is a small noise punctuated by a questioning lilt. He’s really not sure what happened before this. There is a sparking, aching hole in his memory files. He can’t remember what used to be there, but he’s pretty sure that he doesn’t want to be reminded.

“C’mon, Drift,” Gasket’s worried optics peer down. “Tell the medic what happened.”

Drift grunts. Words are hard. Remembering what happened is even harder. Sorting through the fragmented pixels of short-term recall took more of his bandwidth than it should. Trying to access those corrupted files spit out a cascade of error messages that cram onto his HUD. He scrambles away from probing those files further.

Ratchet appears to have given up waiting for an answer and shifts somewhere out of sight. Drift lulls off into a fugue as the medic fades into insignificant ambient noise, then yelps when the wires in his left pede twinge.

 “Is he alright?”

“His frame got a good singeing, but it’s otherwise intact. Spark’s still stable. I don’t know how his processor fared though.” Ratchet appears back in view, accompanied with a torch this time. Drift groans in protest when the glare is directed straight into his optics. An attempt to shield his optics gets swatted away. “Stop that. Look at the light and focus on it.”

The pinpoint of white grows, then swings away, leaving a blue-purple after image. His optics reflexively reboot before the world resolves into something recognisable again.

“Audials are online and optic mechanism reflexes are appropriate,” Ratchet mutters as he pulls away. The clicking in the other corner must be Gasket. He always had a bad habit of rattling his dorsal plating, especially when anxious. Worry and guilt thud dully at Drift’s spark. Gasket is a good mech. He doesn’t deserve this, especially when it’s all Drift’s stupid fault.

A faint hum suggests a datapad being brought online. “I don’t have the equipment to perform a deeper scan in this clinic. What I can do instead is to hold him here and hook him up to a monitor to see how he does. If he gets better by the start of the next cycle, there shouldn’t be too much to worry about.”

“Will he, though? He can’t even speak!” The uncertainty in Gasket’s voice is dismaying. He’s always been sure and dependable, the one trusted to lead them through the miserable minefield of life in Dead End. To think of Gasket as helpless and weak… That’s just _wrong_.

The medic’s response is crisp and precise by contrast. “Voxcoders burn out more easily. If his self-repair can’t fix it properly, he can come back here for a replacement. I’m giving him another sense-blocker. In the meantime, make sure he doesn’t exert himself.”

He reaches over Drift’s supine frame to the latches protecting maintenance ports near the axilla. Magnets hidden in the medic’s hands trigger an auto-release of the covers, so naturally that Drift doesn’t feel them open. The only thing that registers is the push of the sense-blocker chip into the port.

Then it occurs to Drift that the pain is gone. His plating sensors are flat. An odd sensation, to have so much input missing, like a phantom limb. Experimentally, he rubs the pads of two digits together.

The result is strange enough to be unpleasant. He can see them move, but no sensation is reported. It’s like watching a disembodied hand, or controlling a drone’s husk. Too much like the back rooms where mechs rented out their frames while their sparks were removed and put in storage. Eugh. Just thinking about those places and the rumours shrouding them is enough to make him shudder.

Ratchet turns to address Gasket instead, and it takes an effort to pick up the more muffled words. “He should be stable for now – stay by the berth and call me if anything goes wrong. _Don’t_ let him get out of berth. Primus knows he’s not fit to stand.”

His friend practically rattles in his hurry to the berthside. “Yessir!”

Ratchet shakes his head and sighs in that exasperated way of his, then steps out of the bay. Maybe he’s got other bots to see? What’s going to happen to Drift? Does- Does Ratchet expect payment from him? Or from Gasket?

That line of thought becomes soon inconsequential. Gasket is immediately pressed up against him in a flash, blessed steady metal and field a swirl of comfort and concern. Only then does Drift allow the last fragment of tension to lift off his frame. The foreign peace seeps into his struts like forgotten sunlight. All is well for now.


	3. Sweets to the sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They still don't know what happened.

Drift soon lapses into power-save mode during the extended period of inactivity. It’s practically hardcoded into Dead End bots, one of the many desperate ways their frames try to make fuel stretch just a little further. Unnecessary routines are shut down, along with most processor and motor functions.

He takes the last moment of consciousness to revel in the luxury of safety that doesn't exist anywhere else in Dead End.

When Drift cycles out of power-save, his systems surge back online like a battle-mad Kaonite pithound. The speed of booting up is entirely foreign, and the helmache of running on too little is gone. His optics have been reset back to factory-settings instead of the limited wavelength he’s imposed to cut down on fuel. Even more confusingly, his tank is still pinging as low.

Ah. The bag of med-grade dripping into his lines may account for everything.

“Ga-ksshzt-” He pauses, coughs to reboot his vocaliser. “G-Gasket?”

His friend leaps up from a bundle of dark plating in a corner and barrels over. “Drift! Primus below, Drift, are you alright?”

Drift holds up a servo, both to reassure and to interrupt the torrent of concerned questions. “I’m- I’m fine.” The static fuzzing his voice slowly clears up as he speaks, which is reassuring. “I’m fine, Gasket. You don’t gotta worry about me.”

In a display of bravado, he pushes himself up and swings his pedes off the berth. Gasket makes a _skreeeep_ of alarm, which he temporarily ignores. The fluidity and ease of movement is something he is entirely unaccustomed to.

“Fragging Pit, don’t _do_ that! You remember what the medic said about rest? What if you’d hurt yourself?”

“I’m fine now, Gask. I really am.” Drift quickly scans through his HUD just in case. Nothing alarming is showing up, and his chronometer seems to be working fine. Although- Scrap, has he really been out for one whole cycle? Has Gasket stayed with him this whole while instead of scavenging with the rest? “Did you ever leave while I was out?”

When Gasket shakes his helm in the negative, it’s Drift’s turn to burst out. “Gasket! How did you get fuel? Don’t tell me you’ve been running on empty all this while!” This is his fault, all his fault.

“No, no, no, I’m fine! I fuelled here.” His friend seems embarrassed under Drift’s incredulous stare. “I got it from Ratchet.”

Drift’s stare gets even more incredulous. “Ratchet _never_ gives fuel here.” That was one of the basic tenets of the free clinic. Ratchet made it very clear that it was a _clinic_ , not a fuel-handout centre. Of course, sick mechs would get med-grade (like Drift did), but non-patients (like Gasket) would _never_ get fuel!

“I mean, it wasn’t a cube or anything, but he gave me some energon gels. I dunno why he’s got them around, but he gave me a whole box.” Gasket searches around his subspace, then produces said box. “Here! I saved some for you.”

Like Pit is Drift going to take fuel out of his friend’s intake. “No way. I’m already on med-grade, remember?” He looks up meaningfully at the drip. “Keep it for later. No, really,” he has to add more firmly when Gasket shows no sign of keeping the box again.

Gasket, stupidly generous Gasket, still looks like he’s going to argue, so Drift has to tactically change the subject. “How’d I get here? Last thing I remember was digging around that dumpster behind the old tyre factory.”

“Oh slag, long story.” His friend sinks back as if deflated. “You didn’t turn up for our end-cycle meet, so we went searching. I found you at the back of Smokestack Street, behind the refinery, and- _Primus_ ,” Gasket looks away, obviously troubled by the recall. “You looked, well. You looked _awful_. There was actual smoke coming out of your frame’s seams and energon was dripping out of your optics and you were just screaming and screaming and screaming-”

He chokes on the end of the sentence when he sees Drift’s alarm. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. You really don’t remember… anything at all?”

Drift can only shake his helm mutely. Nothing but fractured pixels. Gasket must have been traumatised, and all he can offer is confusion.

He scrubs a servo across his face. “Look, Gasket, I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for scaring you like that. I shouldn’t have been so slagging stupid, this is all my fault-”

And there come Gasket’s servos, waving away his apologies and petting his cheeks gently. “Not your fault, you hear me? Ain’t your fault. You’re here now, and safe. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be enjoying first class treatment here. Even got free fuel here.” Trust Gasket to make pallid jokes now of all times. The weak attempt at laughter that follows isn’t much better at lightening the atmosphere. His spark squeezes tight.

“Ratchet’s got a scary rep, but he’s a good mech.” All Drift can offer in return is some pathetic scrap of comfort. He doesn’t know what else to say. _Useless_ , he hisses at himself.

“I know that. S’why I brought you here.” One of Gasket’s servos slip down from Drift’s cheekspars and tangles with his servo instead. His grip is tight and warms Drift more than the clinic’s heating vents can.

He leans forward, slowly, and bumps his helmcrest against Gasket’s as his optics dim with trust. The gesture is well-worn by now. Comfort in all forms is sought after in Dead End, and Gasket has been his main source of it since they met. Their fields reach out and tangle in a swell of affection.

Drift slowly powers his optics back to full and then-

“Gasket. Seriously. Put those gels away.”

Completely unashamed at being caught, Gasket laughs as he obeys. “Just you wait. I’m gonna find a moment when you’re not paying attention, then we’ll see.”

Drift snorts and leans back against him. “Fat chance.”

Gasket, however, pulls apart apologetically. “I nearly forgot. I gotta go tell Ratchet you’re up, be right back.” He runs off, out of the bay and to the front of the clinic. That’s the inconvenience of being unable to afford communication upgrades, constantly scurrying around to pass on messages.

Drift is left alone in the medbay. Left to observe the tiny room crammed with boxes of supplies and other unknown things, both opened and unopened. Habit makes his processor and servos itch with the need to root through them and scavenge, but he’d never do that. Not here, and definitely not to Ratchet. He owes the mech.

The medbay door chimes open again, Gasket with Ratchet in tow this time. The doctor comes to a stop in front of him. “So. Tell me how you’re feeling now.”

Drift squints a little. His HUD blurps happy green system updates at him. “Fine. Not too bad.”

“I’m just going to run a full-systems check to see if any errors popped up.” The diagnostic plug slips into his port once again, the handshake is accepted, and Ratchet starts screening his systems. The program starts off as an impersonal skimming of his BIOS.

Then the scan progresses to a more insistent probing, sometimes feeding his systems a trial program to test processing speeds and response. Drift knows next to nothing about maintenance or medicine, but Ratchet isn’t frowning, so all must be well.

It isn’t until the scan progresses to test the integrity of his memory files that problems begin.

Even though medical scans are impersonal programs, Drift can feel a faint echo of Ratchet’s concern over the connection as abnormal findings are fed back to the medic. The scan changes and morphs into a targeted scrutiny of the corrupted files. An automatic attempt to retrieve data initiates-

-and is almost immediately aborted. The program coding can only withdraw with a sulky blurt of unidentified file damage sustained.

Ratchet heaves a sigh and ends the scan. His cable disconnects and spool back into his wrist. “Well, kid. Looks like you didn’t get away completely unscathed.”

Gasket nearly vibrates with anxiety. “What’s wrong?”

“Your friend has some memory file corruption. From the results of my scan and what you told me about him not remembering what happened, it’s most likely that something damaged his processor. What’s puzzling is that not much else has been affected.” Piercing blue optics fixate on Drift again. “Get up. I need to examine your frame and spark function.”

What follows is essentially Drift getting up and down from the berth, walking around, and transformation from alt-mode to root then back again. In the end, Ratchet motions for him to sit back down on the berth again and starts typing away on one of the datapads. “What is your last recollection before you lost consciousness?”

“Scavenging in Smokestack Street,” Drift answers promptly. “I’d been seeing flashes for the past three cycles. I think I passed out right after that.” That was where his memory files stopped syncing properly, anyway.

“Flashes?” Instantly, the medic's attention snaps away from the datapad and back onto his patient.

“Like,” Drift rubs at his finials, thinking hard. “Like flashes of gold. Light shining off metal, you know? Except there wasn’t anyone around me any of the time.”

Ratchet’s furrowed faceplates could rival actual mountain ranges. “Interesting. You are certain that there wasn’t any other explanation for the flashes?”

Drift shakes his helm.

“Well then. That does sound like processor damage to me.” The medic leaned away and ex-vented noisily. “But there doesn’t seem to be any other sign other than your corrupted memory files. Are there any other problems?”

Drift shakes his helm again.

“Then I don’t think there’s anything more that I can do for you.” Joints creak as Ratchet pushes himself upright with a grunt of effort and turns to leave. “Come back if anything new crops up.”

He pauses with one pede over the threshold. “Try to stay out of trouble, kid.”

Drift nods, hard and earnest, just as the medbay doors chime shut.


	4. Adrift in a Sea of Misery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or more accurately, A Drift in a Sea of Misery.)

Five cycles back out on the street, and nothing much has changed for Drift.

He still follows Gasket and the rest of the group out to scavenge and scrape their daily fuel. He’s still itchy and hungry and exhausted (that medgrade infusion didn’t last too long).

He still sees those flashes.

Coppercoil shoots him an unimpressed glare when he reels back from the scrapheap for the fourth time in two groons.

“C’mon, we have to sort through this pile quick before the other gangs get wind of this place.” When Drift still doesn’t budge, his scavenging partner sighs and snaps, “We don’t even have enough to trade for a cube right now.”

Drift would be more annoyed at being talked down to if he weren’t so distracted by the pain.

“Yeah, sorry, I just-” Drift has to wince when his vision disintegrates into static snow again. His peripheral sensors feed him just enough data to map a wobbly path back to where the shifting metal scraps meet solid ground.

Coppercoil’s field does a poor job hiding his annoyance and agitation, although Drift tries his best to ignore it. The worst part is: it’s not like Coppercoil’s being entirely unreasonable – they really do have next to nothing to show for three whole joors of digging at the same heap. The palmful of steel bolts in his subspace are barely worth a fraction of a cube. Coppercoil has to dig twice as hard to make up for the shortfall.

It usually doesn’t take Drift that long at scavenging – he’s got a quick eye and quicker hands, so Gasket says. But the pounding of his helm is unpleasant and distracting. He can only focus for so long on one task before the pain catches up. Jumping from task to task, thought to thought, trying to stay ahead of the lurking pain.

Except no matter how hard he tries, the pain looms over every single joor of Drift’s cycle.

He can’t afford to take a break, not when fuel is so hard to come by. (He can’t buzz it off with Syke, with boosters. He’s promised Gasket.) And he certainly can’t afford a proper pain-blocker chip.

With no other choice, Drift just has to power through the discomfort. He would shrug if his shoulder cables didn’t feel so knotted from hunching over scrap metal all shift.

What is one more misery?

 

(He tries to pretend that he can’t hear the mutters of “glitched” from the mechs around him. If he can still keep up, he isn’t glitched. He’s fine, he’s functional.

If he can’t keep up, he’ll be left behind.

If he gets left behind, he’s dead scrap.

Thinking this fills his tank with burbling panic, and Drift deletes that thought process as fast as he can.)

 

His digits ache from pawing through debris and detritus, but at last, they wrap around something larger and more substantial that the usual polymer shards and burnt wiring.

He tackles its extrication with special stubbornness, like a cyberhound worrying its prey. He scrapes, yanks, and prods without a care for the paint scratched off his servoes.

Scavengers ordinarily leave behind what doesn’t come loose easily. Why waste energy on something that probably won’t trade in for even half a cube?

Drift doesn’t care, not right now. He gives the rod a sharp tug, and it finally comes loose. A conductor or some sort? It’s slightly warped from the weight of garbage piled on it, but otherwise intact.

Coppercoil doesn’t acknowledge the fuss, or even turn around. All Drift can see is the grimy grey-green of his partner’s dorsal plating. He shrugs, then continues pawing through the mound of refuse.

It’s an agonising double-shift before he and Coppercoil scrape together something presentable. Even then, Drift can’t avoid a twinge of embarrassment at how scanty his pickings are for the cycle. He didn’t manage to get much else beside that conducting rod, and there is only so much that Coppercoil can do to make up for the shortfall.

Gasket doesn’t say anything about it, at least, so neither do the rest of the group.

They don’t have to speak a single word. The reduced fuel rations is rebuke enough.

Drift can hardly choke down his share of frack dregs. He doesn’t even deserve that much. It was his fault that pickings were so slim today, it’s because of him that the whole group starves.

And yet hunger is stronger, and the fuel goes down his intake anyway.

He’s pulled his field around himself into a tense curl, avoiding eye contact with anyone else. So it isn’t until Gasket nearly steps on him that he looks up.

“Coppercoil told me you were having trouble today.”

Drift cringes like a kicked turborat. His ration curdles in his tank. “Was slow today. I’ll make up for it next cycle, promise.”

The way Gasket’s optics narrow, he’s not buying that. Drift stumbles into fragments of an explanation. “Still seeing flashes, but- but I’m fine. I’m good. I can work harder, Gask. Really.”

Gasket’s ex-vents rattle through his slats. “You aren’t okay, Drift, and you know that. I’m no medic, but you can’t walk something like this off.”

“That ain’t good, y’know.” Pothole croaks from his corner. Nobody likes squeezing up next to that old mech, you’d get rustflakes in your seams. But right now? He’s not getting shunned any harder than Drift. “Keep sleepin’ on it, and one day you won’t get up. Glitch’s gonna eat your chip up if you ignore it.”

The rest of the group look at each other uneasily. Pothole looks and acts like a rustbucket, but he deserves it. He’s one of the oldest among them, he’s seen things that the rest of them might not even live to see. Who knows if he saw other bots start out on the same path as Drift, and where did that path lead to?

As the whispers rise, so does Drift’s panic.

No. Panic only got you killed, in Dead End.

He rides the wave of dread and terror, focuses it into a pinpoint of anger. “I’m not glitched!”

“You’re not glitched.” Gasket soothes, ignoring Pothole’s grumblings. “But you’ve got a problem that you can’t keep ignoring.”

Somehow, the gentleness is worse than Coppercoil’s silent resentment and blame. It pierces through his stubborn defense, through his mute endurance, straight through to his spark.

He can only search his friend’s, his _leader’s_ face in mounting horror. Is that pity? Is that disappointment? Distress snakes into Drift’s core, swelling until he bursts up at his friend. “I can work fine! Promise! I’ll work double! I ca-”

Gasket chops off that sentence with a slice of his servo. “Ain’t about work. S’about _you_ , Drift.” The way his optics gleam earnestly makes Drift swallow whatever else he was going to say. “What if your processor burns out? What if this problem eats you up till there’s nothing left?” Pistons hiss as he takes a step closer, puts a servo on Drift’s shoulder. Drift can’t help but into the warm weight of living metal.

A sigh gusts past his audials, and it’s not from worn hydraulics. “I ain’t mad at you, Drift. We ain’t mad at you. But you gotta start thinking about what to do next, yeah?”

Drift can’t help the way his finials slick back in wariness. “Ratchet already said I was fine.”

“No, Ratchet _said_ that he didn’t find anything. That’s different.”

“If Ratchet can’t find anything, then what else is there to do? I told you, I can still work.”

“Means that we just find someone else to help.” Gasket cocks his helm back towards Pothole. “Pothole?”

“Yeah?”

“Any idea where to start looking?”

Pothole grunts, scratches rust flakes off his mandibular plating. “Lemme start thinking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! These few months were pretty dry, but I think I'm back now!


	5. Courier's Footprint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate mechs are willing to resort to desperate measures.

None of the gang really likes to talk to Pothole for any significant period of time, especially due to his tendency to devolve into rambling and non sequiturs. Like right now.

“Been a long time since I heard of someone with waking dreams. Or hallucinations. Must’ve been one Pit of a fender-bender you were on. Been only some time since I heard of bots complaining about fuel quality though. Been some time since I heard you- Whassat you said you saw?”

“Fire. Felt like I was burning up.” Drift replies with as much patience he can muster. He’s tired and achy after a whole shift of scavenging, but he’s hardly the only one who worked hard, and Pothole _is_ , after all, trying to help. The least he can do is to be patient with this rambling rustbucket. If not for Pothole nor for himself, then at least for Gasket. Drift would do anything for Gasket.

Pothole doesn’t respond immediately as his optics dim, leading to an awkward lapse in conversation. _Patience_ , Drift reminds himself. Pothole runs on some ancient BIOS that’s Primus-knows how many generations out of date, and he takes _joors_ to boot up from recharge. Slow responses from him shouldn’t terribly surprising, then.

Drift is starting to consider inching away and continuing this at another time when Pothole croaks again.

“What?”

“I said: haven’t heard of fire since that crazy cultist from Nyon tried setting _me_ on fire.”

Drift is still considering breaking off the conversation, but the story of Pothole on fire is oddly appealing. It… may or may not be a petty form of catharsis for his suppressed irritation at how long this is taking.

He settles back down, stretching out the strain in his backstruts. “Why’d he do that? And what were you doing with cultists, anyway?”

Pothole just shrugs. Drift bites back his sigh and braces himself for another unreasonably long wait.

He’s almost initiating his recharge protocols when Pothole finally pipes up once again. “What I think is, he was fire-mad. That no-good hooligan was walking around making this awful screeching while spitting actual fire out of his intake. I’d have gotten more than my tires melted if I didn’t skedaddle. A buddy of a buddy went fire-mad after he hung around for too long. Heard he heard things and got set on fire, same as that cultist mech.”

Drift startles wide awake. That sounds a little like what _he_ had went through. Maybe-

A rumbling of vents indicate that Pothole has entered recharge. Slaggit. It’ll take more time than it’s worth to rouse him again, and Drift really has had enough talk with Pothole for one cycle.

He talks to Gasket about this though. He needs the steadiness of his friend and leader more than anything else, to be reassured that he’s worth the trouble every mech is going through just for _him_.

Gasket gives him all that and more, as Drift curls up next to him and relates the story of Pothole and the mad cultist. He’s too exhausted to tell it right, though, and the story comes out flat and uninteresting. Yet Gasket still listens carefully and soothes him into recharge with pats to his shoulder pauldron.

When Drift boots up from recharge, Gasket has come up with one more thing for him: a plan to get him to Nyon and find out what the frag is going on.

It’s a stupid plan, Drift argues. Too much uncertainty and too much trouble. Too reliant on Pothole’s rambling hearsay and costs too many credits that they don’t have.

Gasket ignores all his protests and glares the rest of the gang into submission.

Once the plan is set, the group starts scrabbling for parts so fast that Drift is really struggling to keep up. Which makes Drift feel worse, because they’re doing this for _him_. Well, actually, Gasket is doing this for him. Drift doesn’t know if this makes the others resent him, but he’s too scared of the truth to find out. He just keeps his helm down and does what he’s told the best he can. He owes Gasket that much, at least.

The only mech they can exchange this pile of scrap for anything half-decent is Flipper. Turns out that Gasket knew a guy who knew another guy, who directed them to Flipper. Wiry, wisecracking, gutted by empurata. Drift isn’t sure what he did to earn that, but it’s clear that it’s not going to stop a mech like Flipper from racketing creds. He’s got three claws where each servo used to be instead of the standard pincer, all the better to handle credsticks with. His optic is shielded by a grimy visor but turned up to a greater brightness than any of Drift’s gang dares. His frame even looks relatively rust-free. An Empurata actually in better condition than Drift and his gang, that was how low they are now. Drift’s hope is starting to quail in his spark.

Overall, Flipper seems to be doing rather well for himself. It’s a comforting thing in Dead End, where honesty is a sure way to a premature offlining. Not that Dead End mechs hang around for very long, anyway.

Flipper’s visor brightens even further when he hears their pedesteps approach. “You looking for stuff, my bots? I only got what’s on me right now.” His vocaliser clicks in what might be a chuckle. “Don’t ask how I fit so much in my subspace. Trade secret.”

Gasket nods. “We want to make a trade. Heard you accept scrap straight.”

A rattling ex-vent shows exactly what Flipper thinks of the offer. “Yeah, I do. Not my favoured currency, but hey, can’t be picky.”

The smuggler makes no move to produce any of his items. Instead, he beams out a holo display of his subspace inventory. It’s easier to deny everything that way, when nosy Enforcers come poking around. It wouldn’t do for them to know that a raggedy group like Gasket’s is trying to trade for a forged permit to leave city borders.

No way a raggedy smuggler like Flipper can get hold of something as big as a forged permit though. But he’s an important first stepping stone up and out of Dead End. Or, as Pothole rasped, “He’s got some friends in high places. Higher than ours, anyway.” Drift idly wondered what those ‘friends’ of his did for a living. Were they good enough to be above-board legally? Or were they just mechs who didn’t have to worry about next cycle’s fuel?

“See anything you want?”

Gasket shakes his helm in the negative. “I’d rather see how much credit we can get first. How much would you value this at?” He gestures to two oil drums they’ve dragged all the way from their hideout. The rattling and bumps on the way here were hideous, but at least nobody’s tried to mug them.

Flipper whistles and start prodding about the heaps of salvaged junk, occasionally picking pieces out for closer inspection. His voice is brisk and business-like all the way through, almost as if he’s giving a lecture. “Scorch-marks on the cylinder. Someone didn’t watch the insulation until it was too late. Pity, that shortens the usable lifespan. And this? Well…scratched, but otherwise functional. _This_ is only fit for smelting. Don’t worry, I can still give you scrap-price for it. Ain’t much, but since you got such a big pile, it’ll add up. Mmmm. Mint-condition sprocket here, but they’re rust-cheap on the market since it’s pre-fab.”

The sprocket clinks as the smuggler tosses it back into the drum and his voice suddenly lightens conversationally. “What’d you want, anyway? Items? Pure creds? Can’t help you much if I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“We’re looking for a way out of here.”

“Huh. Can’t blame you. Not many mechs make it out of Dead End though.”

“No, not Dead End. The city. We want to get out of the city.”

Flipper’s controlled field makes the spike of surprise all the more obvious. “What? Where to?”

“Nyon.”

“Hmm.” Flipper’s visor doesn’t move, but Drift gets the impression that he’s scanning the gang up and down, trying to figure out why a bunch of low-lives want to get all the way to Nyon. “Not gonna question the _why_ s, but I’m pretty sceptical about the _how_ s. A lifetime of scrap-digging won’t get you within a sniff of Nyon.”

“We know that.” Gasket looks so, so tired. This is Drift’s fault, all Drift’s fault. “But we gotta start somewhere.”

“Mind telling me what’s lit the fire under your aft?”

“One of us’s got a real bad condition.” Drift is absurdly grateful that his gang leader didn’t label it as a glitch instead. “Medic here can’t help much. We heard that Nyon has a lead. Gotta get at least one of us there for help.”

Flipper’s helm cocks at an angle as he processes this. “Sounds pretty serious, or you wouldn’t bother. You’re gonna need help from the higher-ups.” His sole optic cycles behind his visor as his processor runs some unknown thought thread, throwing the encroaching calcified deposits at the visor edges into sharp relief. “Look. I know it ain’t easy for you and your mechs. But I can pass you mechs on to someone who can help a little more than I can.” His gaze drifts down to the drums of scrap in front of him. “That’s about as far as you can get with this, anyway.”

“What higher-ups?” Drift narrows his optics, instantly on edge. Is this a trap? Is Flipper an agent of some sort? “You working for somebody?”

“Yeah.” Flipper clacks his left claw dismissively. “You think I’d survive here longer than a metacycle on deals like _this_?”

Drift bristles at the derisive edge, despite his better judgement. Fortunately, Flipper isn’t offended enough to do anything more than snap his claw inches from Drift’s nasal ridge. “Gotta have other bots watching my back too, y’know. Just like you got yours. So? Want to make the deal, or nah?”

“Not my call,” Drift grumbles as his plating slowly slicks back down.

“We’ll take it.” Gasket’s voice never wavers, just like his optics fixed on Drift. “We’ll take any chance we can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back to updating this! Comments are greatly appreciated :)


End file.
